Topline
The federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case will conduct a hearing Monday on prosecutors’ request for a limited gag order in the case—part of a series of legal disputes almost certain to delay the trial past the November election.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on June 22, 2024 in Philadelphia, ... [+]
Key Facts
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office requested the gag order after Trump baselessly suggested the FBI agents who raided Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 were prepared to kill him, writing in a fundraising email last month that they were “locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger” and that the Justice Department “AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE” against him.
Trump was referring to standard use-of-force instructions included in the warrant to search his property and made public in an unsealed motion to dismiss the case filed by his legal team.
The instructions state that “law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary,” which is “standard protocol” consistent with “all search warrants,” the FBI said in a statement in response to Trump’s claims, noting “no one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”
Smith’s office cited Trump’s exaggeration in asking Judge Aileen Cannon to prohibit him from making statements that “pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents” involved in the case, accusing Trump of falsely suggesting FBI agents “were complicit in a plot to assassinate him,” the DOJ wrote in a court filing, noting some of the FBI agents could be called as witnesses in the case.
Cannon will hear arguments from prosecutors and Trump’s legal team regarding the gag order Monday, part of a three-day hearing on a series of legal questions that have contributed to an indefinite delay in the trial.
Crucial Quote
“Deploying such knowingly false and inflammatory language in the combustible atmosphere that Trump has created poses an imminent danger to law enforcement that must be addressed before more violence occurs,” the Justice Department wrote in a court filing Friday, according to the Associated Press.
Surprising Fact
Prosecutors also pointed to other threats from Trump supporters against FBI agents in their request. Timothy Muller is charged with leaving an FBI agent involved in the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden a threatening voicemail and text messages shortly after the president’s son was convicted on felony gun charges in Delaware earlier this month. “The last thing you’ll ever hear are the horrified shrieks [of]
your widow and orphans,” Muller allegedly told the agent, according to the Justice Department. The Justice Department also pointed to an attack by a Trump supporter on a Cincinnati FBI office shortly after the Mar-a-Lago raid.Contra
Trump’s lawyers have argued his comments about the FBI agents in the Mar-a-Lago raid were “constitutionally protected campaign speech” and prosecutors failed to prove that they endangered agents, the AP reported. Calling the request “a naked effort to impose totalitarian censorship of core political speech, under threat of incarceration,” prosecutors alleged in a June court filing it is “a clear attempt to silence President Trump’s arguments to the American people about the outrageous nature of this investigation and prosecution.”
Tangent
Trump is under gag orders in his federal election interference case being handled by Smith’s office, his New York civil fraud case and his Manhattan hush money case. The orders generally prohibit him from disparaging court staff, witnesses and others involved in the cases. Trump’s legal team has unsuccessfully challenged the orders, and the judge overseeing his hush money case held him in contempt 10 times throughout the trial for violating the order.
Key Background
Cannon initially rejected the gag order request, accusing prosecutors of failing to give Trump’s lawyers enough time to consider the proposed order before it was filed. Monday’s hearing comes after Cannon heard arguments Friday regarding Trump’s lawyers’ claims that Smith’s appointment as special counsel in the case was unlawful because it was not first approved by Congress and created a “shadow government.” Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to lead the classified documents case and the federal election subversion case against Trump in November 2022 to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest, since Garland serves at the pleasure of the president. The Justice Department argued Garland did not need congressional approval to make the appointment, noting the Justice Department also appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election and David Weiss as special counsel in the DOJ’s investigations of Hunter Biden. Trump was charged last year with 40 federal counts accusing him of mishandling classified documents he allegedly brought with him to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office and obstructing the government’s investigation into his conduct. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has claimed Smith’s office brought the case at Biden’s behest to prevent him from winning the election. The trial date has been delayed indefinitely as the court works its way through a litany of legal issues, leading some legal experts to criticize Cannon for the case’s slow pace.
Further Reading
Trump Claims Biden Allowed FBI To Use ‘Deadly Force’ In Mar-A-Lago Raid—Here’s Why That’s False (Forbes)
Judge Postpones Trump’s Classified Documents Case Indefinitely (Forbes)
Judge In Trump Classified Documents Case Rejects Gag Order Request (Forbes)
